Gobbell, John J. 1937-

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GOBBELL, John J. 1937-

PERSONAL: Born August 28, 1937, in San Diego, CA; son of Williard M. (a physician) and Dorothy P. (a homemaker) Gobbell; married Janine Govan, July 15, 1960; children: Jennifer Gobbell Cheffer, John J., Jr. Ethnicity: "American." Education: University of Southern California, B.A., 1960. Politics: Republican. Religion: Episcopalian. Hobbies and other interests: Yacht racing.

ADDRESSES: Home—659 Promontory Dr. E, Newport Beach, CA 92660. office—Gobbell Co., 1001 Dove St., Ste. 190, Newport Beach, CA 92660. Agent—Wallace Agency, 177 East 70th St., New York, NY 10021. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: KPMG Peat Marwick (certified public accountants), Los Angeles, CA, consultant, 1967-70; Angeles Corp. (investors), Los Angeles, director of personnel, 1970-73; Boyden Associates, Inc. (executive recruiters), New York, NY, vice president of branch in Newport Beach, CA, 1973-83; Gobbell Co. (executive recruiters), Newport Beach, managing director, 1983—. USC Commerce Associates, president. Orange County Fictionaires (reading group), president, 1996. Military service: U.S. Navy, 1960-62, deck officer on a destroyer; became lieutenant.

WRITINGS:

The Brutus Lie (novel), Scribner (New York, NY), 1991.

The Last Lieutenant (novel), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1995.

A Code for Tomorrow, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1999.

When Duty Whispers Low, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2002.

The Neptune Strategy, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2004.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A screenplay adaptation of The Brutus Lie titled Traitor on the Bridge.

SIDELIGHTS: John J. Gobbell served in the U.S. Navy as a weapons officer aboard destroyers. One of his ships, the U.S.S. Tingey, sailed with the Seventh Fleet in the South China Sea. These naval experiences, along with his successful career as a high-level corporate recruiter, inform the themes of his novels.

Gobbell's first novel, The Brutus Lie, uses the convention of separated baby twins to tell a cold-war naval thriller. One baby boy is adopted by an American army corporal and taken to America. The other is adopted by a Soviet sergeant and raised in the Soviet Union. In a straight plot narrative, Gobbell pits brother against brother in a technological battle of realistic minisub technology while the two superpowers have their own reasons that the brothers should never unite. Publishers Weekly appreciated the technical accuracy of the book, noting, "Readers will be rewarded by a knowledgeable presentation of modern minisub technology and the extended escape and evasion narrative," while former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman wrote, "John Gobbell is the John Le Carré of naval thrillers."

The Last Lieutenant tells the story of the American defeat at Corregidor and the crucial American victory at Midway Island. Publishers Weekly noted that the story is based on South from Corregidor, the true account of Lt. Commander John H. Morrill II's 1943 escape from Corregidor Island the night it fell to the Japanese.

The novel begins in El Paso, Texas, in 1941 when a Nazi spy infiltrates the Navy by murdering a young sailor named Walter A. Radke and assuming his identity. After becoming a cryptologist, he finds himself on Corregidor holding invaluable secret information on the U.S. plans for the Battle of Midway.

As the island falls to the Japanese, Lt. Todd Ingram is ordered to get the bearers of the codes, Radke and Lt. Epperson, off the island onto a waiting submarine. During the escape, a mortally wounded Epperson tells Ingram that Radke has disappeared on the island with the codes. Besides protecting the codes, Ingram manages to get seventeen survivors of the battle from the Philippines to Australia on a thirty-six-foot boat. Roland Green wrote in Booklist, "The action is continuous, the characterization well above average (even sparked by touches of wit), and the sense of place and time strong. Noteworthy, too, are Gobbell's implicit tribute to the role of the Filipinos in resisting the Japanese and helping Americans escape and the stark realism of his treatment of the fall of Corregidor."

A Code for Tomorrow is a sequel to The Last Lieutenant. Lt. Todd Ingram has safely escaped from Corregidor. Although Washington has promised him some easy duty after his Pacific tour, he is sent back to the Pacific onboard a destroyer as executive officer. Gobbell puts Ingram in two of the epic naval battles off Guadalcanal: the Battle of Cape Esperance and the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. "The sea action is thoroughly convincing," noted Kirkus Reviews. The subplot brings Ingram to Mindanao, in the Philippines, where his girlfriend, Helen Durand, is behind enemy lines with a Philippine resistance group. After being betrayed by a Russian agent he has come to trust, Helen and her Philippine guerilla brigade rescue him from a Japanese base where he had been held and tortured. A Publishers Weekly reviewer found the sequel weak, commenting, "Blustering and never notably bright, Gobbell's characters come across as caricatures, especially the Japanese and Russian bad guys."

When Duty Whispers Low continues to follow Ingram, who is again the executive officer aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Howell. Gobbell introduces the real-life American technological breakthrough of proximity fuses. This new ordnance was invented in 1943 to assist the U.S. Navy in its fight against Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's sea and air attacks to retake Guadalcanal and turn the tide in the Pacific theater.

Since his first novel, Gobbell has been praised for sound research and good storytelling. Booklist critic Thomas Gaughan wrote, "The combination of careful research, fascinating back story, and the author's own experience makes this series—and this installment—a real winner. Fans of naval adventure will almost smell the fetid jungle of Tulagi and be deafened by the ship's guns. They will be infuriated by the corrosive careerism of various self-aggrandizing officers."

Gobbell once told CA: "My primary motivation for writing is that I finally figured out a way to put my daydreams to work. I am influenced by top-of-the-line thriller and action-adventure authors. My writing process is helter-skelter, undisciplined, and totally unplanned. Scheduling helps, but I am soon distracted and in the process of shooting myself in the foot. I keep trying. I was inspired to write on the subjects I have chosen because I enjoy reading about man, machine, and overcoming enormous circumstances, using wit and intelligence in an extremely limited time."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August 1, 1995, Roland Green, review of The Last Lieutenant, p. 1929; June 1, 1999, Budd Arthur, review of A Code for Tomorrow, p. 1790; December 15, 2001, Thomas Gaughan, review of When Duty Whispers Low, p. 703.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1999, review of A Code for Tomorrow, p. 902.

Library Journal, November 15, 2001, Patrick J. Wall, review of When Duty Whispers Low, p. 96.

Publishers Weekly, February 15, 1991, Sybil Steinberg, review of The Brutus Lie, p. 75; May 29, 1995, review of The Last Lieutenant, p. 66; June 21, 1999, review of A Code for Tomorrow, p. 57; November 19, 2001, review of When Duty Whispers Low, p. 45.

School Library Journal, September 1995, Catherine Noonan, review of The Last Lieutenant, p. 232.